Convention Speakers in Favor of Resolution
103b, Iraq
and the Economy

Stan Israel, Vice President, 1199 New England, Providence RI

After two tours of duty in Vietnam, I came
home and I became a charter member of Vietnam Veterans Against the War in
1968.Dont let anyone tell you that
being against the war is not a labor issue or a union issue. I found out
that the closer you got to where the shooting was, the darker the skin of the
workers who were there fighting, the lower the pay they got. Its the sons and
daughters of working people who did the fighting and dying, for the rich to get
richer.Despite the argument from George
Bush that democracy is coming to Iraq, Iraqi workers are still as
oppressed as ever.The anti-labor law
that Saddam Hussein put into effect in 1987, banning public sector and oil
workers from unionizing, is still in place. We hosted courageous trade union activists
from Iraq
who told us they do not believe that the U.S. military presence helps them
in their struggle.Rather it provides
the excuse for more violence on them and their leaders.I urge support of the resolution against the
war.

Deborah Bohn, SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania

Im a thirty-year union
member. I lived the American Dream.Im
a military wife, my husband has served thirty-five years between the Navy and
the National Guard.My son is an ensign
in the Navy Reserve and my daughter is Ensign Elizabeth Bohn, U.S. Navy flight
officer. We know the numbers: the deaths, the wounded, the suicides. I want to
talk to you about the emotional toll. On January 10, 2006, at 11:10 pm, I had that knock at the door.I was told my daughters plane was missing.
Twenty four hours later I was told the plane was found and there were no
survivors.This happened two weeks
before her 24th birthday, three days after her boyfriend proposed
marriage and she had accepted. Seven months later I found out that the common
remains from that plane accident were inadvertently disposed of in the
incinerator with the garbage. I stand before you today just a shell of a person
I was. I no longer function at the level I was before. I ask you to
support this resolution.No mother, no
parent should do what I did and bury their child. Our local union is an
affiliate of US Labor Against the War and I ask other locals to join us.

I am a Vietnam-era
veteran.The war has had a devastating
effect on thousands, who have given all they had, and it has brought home tens
of thousands of veterans with injuries  some obvious, some not.The economic cost of the war is devastating
our country. This money should have been spent on our ailing and crumbling
infrastructure, and on health care for each and every one of us. This war
continues and George Bush holds out his hand again, demanding $135 Billion
more.He continues to place this war as
a priority over working families and even over the adequate treatment of our
military women and men.As a union we
need to keep the ending of the war on
our national agenda.

Ray Kroger Local 517 MI

Im a retired Army first sergeant for 22 years.No one opposes war more than a soldier does,
even though sometimes its necessary.I
believe we need to get out of there. I do not believe this war was necessary.
The United States Army should not be used to impose our political ideas on another
nation.

Phil Martini Local 73, Chicago, IL

On April 8, 2006,
I got the call, as my Gold Star sister did.My son was killed by sniper fire at El Anbar, at 14:20:22 hours.Not
long after my son had died, I went to his memorial in San Diego. Of his twelve-man squad,
only five came back and only three were uninjured. I was asked if I
wanted to see a storyboard so I went with a colonel to see these aerial
photos.I suddenly realized I was
looking at my son in his partners arms, and the time on the photo was 14:20:22.My son joined the Marines with our next door
neighbor who just completed his third tour.He also was squad leader; ten of his twelve men died in his arms.He now has a 75% disability, post traumatic
stress syndrome. Those that come home not physically harmed are mentally
injured. We have to do everything we can to get our sons and daughters,
brothers and sisters home.

Bob Christian, SEIU HealthcarePennsylvania

Im an army brat all my life, weve moved
place to place all my life. Ive been told the service is the only place to go,
the service is 100% right. When I first heard a resolution against war at my
local, I was very offended.Im here to
tell you today, I was wrong. Because there are people who cant afford to
live, dont have health insurance, and were spending billions and billions on
a war we shouldnt have started to begin with.My father told me just a couple of months ago that the war is
wrong.And if I can see a man who has
lived that long in the service change his opinion, then I know in my heart my
change of opinion is also correct.Join
USLAW, spread the word, talk to people, because if we dont do it no one else
will. Its got to stop now.

Bob Fernandez, 4Cs Local 1973, Connecticut

Im retired Navy, senior chief hospital corpsman who proudly
spent ten years providing medical support for the Marine Corps, and Im a
veteran of the first Gulf War. When those boys and girls, men and women, who
are in the sands of Iraq, die and get hurt, in the Marine Corps they call
corpsman up! If you ever see what an
AK-47 or an IED can do to a human body, then the debate would end. War is a
machine of death and we dishonor these veterans because we went to war for a
lie. A lie!Meanwhile, 200,000 of my
brothers and sisters live in the streets.People cant get health care in the Veterans Administration. Vietnam vets could go to college
but these kids cant.They are dying for
a lie. I urge my brothers and sisters in the labor movement in this country:
stand up, spend those billions of dollars at home treating these men and women .

Resolution #103b

Iraq and the Economy

There is no more shameful failure on the part of
politicians than to send our young people to die bravely trying to carry out a
counterproductive and unachievable mission.

With that in mind, SEIU President Andy Stern sent a
letter to President Bush in January, 2003, with the approval of the elected
local union leaders who make up the SEIU International Executive Board.

The letter questioned President Bushs plans to
invade Iraq
because they were not consistent with four principles that should guide U.S. policy:

1.War involves enormous risks to our families and our
communities and must be a last option, not the first.

2.The goal of our foreign policy must be to promote a
safer and more just world  promoting peaceful, multilateral solutions for
disputes.

3.U.S. foreign policy must give
high priority to improving the lives of people around the world.

4.The rights and freedoms our government says it is
fighting for abroad must be protected at home.

More than five years later, the invasion of Iraq has proven
to be the worst policy disaster of our time. Even by the Pentagons own
official figures, 30,000 Americans have been wounded and more than 4,000
killed. Iraqi deaths and casualties are hard to document but number in the
hundreds of thousands.

This war that has lined the pockets of major
corporate campaign contributors has drained the U.S. economy and local communities
of resources urgently needed for health care, education, housing, and other
needs. The annual cost of the war is estimated at twice what it would take to
ensure access to affordable, quality healthcare for everyone in America.

Meanwhile, the war has made us less safe, not more.
It has turned public opinion around the world against the United States,
squandering the opportunity to unite people of goodwill after the September 11th
attacks.

As far back as November 5, 2003, Senator McCain urged
President Bush to send at least 15,000 more U.S. troops to Iraq, calling
it irresponsible to suggest it is up to Iraqis to win this war. He said at
that time that it will require a commitment to do what is necessary
militarily, to deploy as many American forces for as long as it takes. (USA Today, 11/6/2003)

On November
19, 2006, just days after the American people voted for major
changes in Congress, in large part to signal to officials in Washington that it was time to bring troops
home, McCain renewed his call for Bush to send an overwhelming number of
troops. (Associated Press, 11/19/06)

Two months later, President Bush implemented the
escalation McCain had long called for. The Bush-McCain escalation has cost
thousands more casualties and billions more dollars, but, predictably, has
failed to achieve the objective of establishing peace and security in that
country.

Senator McCain said at a videotaped town hall
meeting with voters in New Hampshire early this year that he could foresee U.S.
troops continuing to occupy Iraq for a hundred years, a sign that working
families could be suffering from the effects of this failed policy for many
more years to come if a dramatic change in direction is not made. (YouTube, 1/3/08)

Therefore be it resolved:

SEIU should continue to support our troops by
leading and supporting coalitions (such as USLAW) of union members, veterans,
and others who share our goals of:

·Bringing
the troops home.

·Ensuring
that they have the healthcare and other services they need.

·Shifting
the billions now being spent on the war to strengthen our economy and meet the
urgent needs of communities here at home.

Establishing a
new foreign policy that promotes justice and basic rights for working people at
home and abroad and that sees global alliances and problem solving, not
unilateral military action, as the preferred option.